Jackets include hidden extras
Annual show includes garments that go from highfashion to hi-tech
At first glance, Darryl Chin’s screen-printed jackets look to be contemporary high fashion with abstract patterns and careful construction. But there’s a high-tech element a touch of the fabric reveals.
The black and white prints are peppered with brighter coloured patches embedded with Near Field Communication chips. The chips activate nearby compatable mobile devices, linking them to a website (offlinepresents.com/patch) which connects to a varity of other sites. An online demo shows the user looking at their web history, including Google searches and social media use like who you have rejected as a friend on Facebook.
Chin made the items with sewer/ garment constructor Zoe Wilder and virtual technician Francis MaslinRoss but the trio isn’t showing the clothing at a fashion event. Instead, the work is displayed at this weekend’s Elam Artists Graduate Show — an annual event regarded as one of the best places to spot New Zealand’s next generation of emerging artists.
More than 100 contemporary art projects are exhibited, from traditional painting, sculpture and ceramics through to the virtual reality clothing made by Chin and the network of artists with whom he creates. His project, Offline Presents, also includes a virtual reality walk into another gallery.
The idea is to highlight how digital spaces play into capitalism and consumerism. Chin’s artist statement said the clothes were developed from an idea of resistance against the power of algorithms, information and networks have over our lives and the ways in which we form our identities and perspectives.
“The online network allows artists and communities to distribute their practices and the clothes aim to bring these spaces into the everyday. As the platform grows, we hope that you can contribute to the evolution of different ideas within an inclusive community who value sharing knowledge and experiences.”
Dr Peter Shand, who heads the University of Auckland’s Elam School of Fine Arts, said the show contains a growing amount of moving image and virtual art but stresses there’s still a strong focus on materials and the physical properties of the work.
“It’s also about . . . communicating things that can be so internal to one’s view of the world and the processes of making work,” he said. “It raises of questions about what does it mean to take the work ‘outdoors’ and back into the world.”
In the past two years, Elam itself has gone higher tech with a website dedicated to those exhibiting in the end-of-year show. Shand said students decide whether they participate in the exhibition, which occupies spaces and galleries in five buildings on campus and attracts thousands of art lovers.
While the work isn’t overtly for sale, those who decide there’s a piece they can’t live without can contact the artists to negotiate a sale. Given that Elam was founded in 1890 and graduate shows have been held for decades, there’s a fair chance fortune may have favoured the brave with the likes of past pupils including Gretchen Albrecht, Don Binney, Michael Parekowhai and Ian Scott.
Luke Willis Thompson, who graduated from Elam with a Master of Fine Arts degree in 2010, took part in the graduate shows. In just under a fortnight, Thompson — and the world — will find out whether he’s won the United Kingdom’s Turner Prize and the £25,000 ($47,250) reward that accompanies it.
Nominated for an installation called Autoportrait, he is the second New Zealander (after Boyd Webb in 1988) to be singularly nominated for the award but Kiwi artist Louis Schulz won the prize in 2015 as part of the London-based collective Assemble.
● Elam Artists Graduate Show, today, 10am-5pm, elamartists.ac.nz.